Giving Up Shopping For Lent | Update 3

This is hard y’all. I have always loved shopping and even when I don’t really have the money to shop I have still enjoyed browsing. I love walking through stores and getting ideas for future projects. Good, bad, or indifferent, I get a small thrill from buying something fun and new no matter how small (Target dollar section is my favorite!) And more than anything, I LOVE a good deal! So this past weekend we had a swim meet in Sarasota and I was driving through St. Armands Circle just itching for a stop into the amazing stores they have down there. But no. I didn’t. I also came across a fab deal on Amazon but no, I didn’t buy that either. Be proud! Haha!

I did find however, that any time you take a road trip, even a small one, purchases are fairly inevitable. Because hotels were $200 a night, we opted to drive back and forth from home each day but that allowed me to justify Starbucks because, yawn, I gave my entire weekend to my son’s swimming. I also said on a whim that I’d buy him the state championship t-shirt if he surpassed his goal time which he did by a lot- in fact he set a personal record in 5 of 6 races. So does that count as shopping? Perhaps not exactly but I can’t possibly justify it as a necessary purchase. We also stopped for ice cream because, well, he asked if we could and sometimes I just want to be the mom that says yes. So I did. And we had an incredible weekend. I don’t feel badly about the few spending choices but then again I do because this is supposed to be hard and not something where you give in just because. In the moment, I weighed keeping with this goal vs making happy memories with my kiddo. I went for the happy memories.

As far as food goes, we still have a deep freezer full of food- breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Our refrigerator is pretty low on everything. Our main freezer is also running low but definitely has a week or two more of food in it. Our pantry looks full but there are a lot of things that don’t really go with anything else unless you’re on one of those chef shows where you get random ingredients and make a gourmet meal. Since I’m not that talented in the kitchen I’m not sure what to do with the random stuff except to use it as a side with something else. A person who shall remain nameless went and bought us bread and eggs which we were out of. I didn’t ask nor did I do the shopping. But I guess that’s kinda cheating. So far the kids haven’t really noticed that we have run out of some things. They tend to be more “see it, eat it,” type kids and don’t seem to care what we have or don’t have. I have no doubt we’ll be able to get through at least another week or two, probably more, with what we have. Until next time…

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